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Chapter VII.

‘Gold gleams that light the sullen sea,
And quickly fleet and fly,
Gray fields to emerald to transform,
Brown woods to glorify,
And heathered hills that slept in fern
Touch in to jewelry.
Daisies! that star the summer fields;
Feathers upon the stream;
Poppies amid the sober corn
That flash their scarlet gleam;
Blossom upon the trees of which
All the dull year they dream.’

Twenty minutes had gone. The stillness of a burning noon was on the land. Hot and white glared the dusty road, and far as its long sinuous track was visible, no human form appeared, save the one who leaned on the gate, and with folded arms and moody brow looked across the fields of a large farm. Incessantly chirped the cicadas in the gumtrees, and incessantly whirred and clattered the reaping-machine around the wheat-field that came up to the road. Now and then the loud voice of the driver or some lively chatter from the Maoris who were binding the sheaves mingled with these sounds. In the warm languid air every sound seemed to be mellowed into softness, even as every page 80 colour of earth and sky was suffused with a golden haze. Nature was enjoying her siesta; man, as usual, was working hard. The sunburnt harvesters in the wheat-field plodded round and round an ever lessening circle. When once or twice there was a stoppage, the horses took advantage of the brief respite to thrust their heads into the standing corn and snatch great mouthfuls of the thickly clustering cars.

A Maori boy, bearing as a banner a white handkerchief tied to a flax stalk, was carrying water to the thirsty binders. Some of them were women, dressed in bright coloured calicoes, blue, orange, or pink, that flashed out in startling contrast with the golden-hued sheaves. Poor women, their feet were tired enough, and sore, even bleeding, with the sharp points of the stubble. One or two had tied gaudy handkerchiefs round their heads; the others wore large hats, with brims so broad that there was no danger of the sun making their brown faces any browner. And some had pleasant faces, if they were brown, which at least had the beauty of blackest and brightest eyes, and a set of flashing white teeth no dentistry could have rivalled.

While the Maoris drank water, the colonial labourers and their employer hailed with delight the frequent appearance of a brown earthenware jug, sometimes filled with beer, sometimes with tea. At the present time this was making its rounds, and contained tea both sweet and strong. page 81 It was a refreshing draught from this jug which gave the farmer strength to shout louder than ever to slack workmen, and to converse with the driver of the machine in a tone that defied distance.

‘Never saw the like of this country! Eight shillings a day, and men won't work. Next, I suppose, we shall have to offer half our profits to induce them to help us. I'd sell out to-morrow if I could. I don't know whether I won't sell out after harvest and leave the place. Look at that loafer on the road; eight shillings don't tempt him to use his lazy hands.’

The person thus referred to withdrew from the gate on which he had been leaning. It was not pleasant to be called a ‘loafer’; the word was ugly as well as vulgar, and the uneasy consciousness that he might be fairly accused of having earned the appellation did not make it sound any better.

‘That man has been there a good while,’ said the driver, who was examining the knives of his machine.

‘Some men would stand like that all day, as if they had taken root,’ remarked the farmer. ‘That's the kind the Government bring out. In reality it's we who pay their passages, and when they're here they turn round and lord it over us. Hi, you, Peter!’

Peter was an amiable-looking Maori, who had been binding his sheaves so dexterously that they had all come undone.

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‘Kakino the maki,’ shouted the farmer, in very colonial Maori.

Peter smiled most innocently, assuming an expression of great astonishment.

‘You idle fellow!’ said his master, relapsing into his own language. ‘Get on and do your work better,’—at which injunction Peter bound a sheaf in a superior style.

The farmer, in making the round of the field, had now come very close to Randall's position.

‘If you want work,’ he said, eyeing the latter very keenly, ‘why don't you ask for it, instead of spending your day in watching industrious people?’

He noticed, just after he had said this, that the man he addressed was making a rough sketch of the harvest field and its labourers on a leaf in his pocket-book. He considered that perhaps he had made a mistake.

‘Oh, excuse me,’ he said. ‘I suppose you're at your own work. Capital, too, that; it looks like real life: you've hit me off to a T. I thought at a distance, you know,’ he added apologetically, ‘that you were some one looking out for work; and as I was short-handed I came to see.’

‘Are you short-handed?’ said Randall. ‘I have no work of my own, for I don't call this work. I'll help willingly if you want another hand.’

‘It's not in your line, I guess from your manner,’ said the farmer.

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‘Any work that comes my way is in my line just now,’ said the other.

‘Well, if you're in earnest I suppose you'll do as well as another. We have to go out into the highways and hedges now to get our men together. You may come on in an hour's time—we're going to leave off for dinner—and I'll set you to work.’

During the dinner hour the newly hired man sat in the shade of the stacks with two others who were to be his work-fellows. They were inclined to be sociable, and invited him to share their luncheon. Duncan, a careful Scotchman, opened a parcel of sandwiches which were not less than an inch in thickness, and drank the antique and neglected beverage of water. Simpkins, a wasteful and improvident Englishman, regaled himself on Tasmanian canned fruit and a meat-pie.

Duncan thought the master was strict,—‘unco strict’—but showed sense in looking after the work, and his money was clearly as good as any other man's. Simpkins declared he was a ‘nigger-driver,’ and that in a new country, where one man was as good as another, laws should be made to restrain masters and protect their overworked servants. After he had disposed of the last sandwich Duncan calculated the amount of wages owing to him, and as he was not expert in arithmetical processes this took him some time. Simpkins went to sleep under a stook, and remained there unnoticed for half an hour after the others had returned to their work, page 84 when he was discovered by his injured master, who did not neglect to inform him that the worth of his half hour's work, supposing it could be calculated, should be deducted from his week's wages.

Mr. Langridge the farmer got hoarse before the day was over, and ceased to shout to his men, much to their relief. During the afternoon he devoted himself to a rigid superintendence of the work in another wheat-field, where they were carting and stacking the corn. His newly-acquired man proved such an adept that Langridge looked upon him with other eyes, and was heard to remark that he was ‘something like a man,’ which, it may be presumed, was meant for high praise. Something in Randall's appearance moved the farmer, he knew not why, to make a difference between him and the other men, and restrained him from addressing him roughly. His eye fell on the ring which Randall still wore.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘if I were you I'd put that in my pocket. I daresay, from your speech and your manner, that you were right in wearing it once —quite in your way of life then. But working men, you know, don't sport those things. You might lose it, or what's more likely, some fellow might take a fancy to it.’

The wearer of the ring looked as confused as any vain and overdressed person might who was suddenly convicted of wearing paste for diamonds. It had never struck him before how unsuitable such an ornament was to the hand of a working man.

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‘It was my father's,’ he said quietly; ‘but you are right—I had better not wear it now;’ and he drew it off his finger.

‘Yes, yes,’ said the farmer, not unkindly; he was a good-natured man at heart. ‘Your father's, of course—keep it till you've made your fortune. But where did you learn to pitch sheaves in this style? You weren't brought up to farming, I'll lay a wager on that.’

‘No; but this is not the first time I've worked in the harvest field.’

‘Ah, I knew it wasn't. Now, Simpkins! I believe you're asleep while you're forking.’

‘And it wouldn't be no wonder if I was,’ retorted Simpkins. ‘I've been slaving all the day.’

‘Slaving, have you? Why, I was at it before six, and I'd like to see you or any other day labourer at work before eight. I don't mean to leave off till dark either. I shall have the leading done in this field to-day.’

‘I didn't bargain to work more than eight hours,’ growled Simpkins.

‘Don't, then,’ said the irate Langridge. ‘You're no great prize. I can get plenty who will. I think when a man's paid for overtime he's a great blockhead to stick to the eight hours' system. Well, Steve, have you come to see how we are getting on?’

This question was uttered in a tone quite soft and sweet in comparison to the one in which the other part of his speech had been delivered. ‘Steve’ page 86 was his only son, dearer in his eyes than all his daughters put together, and doubly dearer in another sense, for the young gentleman had made great inroads upon the accumulated stores resulting from twenty years' successful farming.

He had been brought up to be a young gentleman and nothing else, or rather to represent in person his father's ideal young gentleman. The elder Langridge had more sense than to believe that by the acquisition of a very tolerable fortune he had been transformed into a gentleman. He was aware that he remained very much the same uneducated and homely farmer that he had been in the days of his poverty. He had no intention of trying to be anything else. But there were his children; he was ambitious for them, not for himself. If it were somewhat too late in his day for the cultivation of the habits and manners of polite society, and decidedly too late for an amendment of his education, there was yet time to make his son the equal of those whom the farmer had always reverently considered as beings of a nature superior to his own, and whom he usually spoke of as the ‘upper classes.’ He could not climb to their level, but Stephen should.

Langridge was certain that this, like most things he was acquainted with, was a mere matter of money. Boys, he had always understood, were trained into gentlemen at the great English public schools, and finished at the universities. They could learn as much elsewhere: a boy of powerful will could learn page 87 anywhere : witness the case of that diligent Chinese youth who, that he might lose no moment, hung his book on the horn of the cow he tended. After all, education was a tolerably common thing. He himself had often met with self-taught men who had picked up a great deal of information in various irregular and unorthodox ways, whose brains—from his point of view as an ignorant man—seemed to be overloaded with knowledge, and who, nevertheless, were not much thought of. Any ordinary fellow, who could never be considered a gentleman, might take it into his head to educate himself. Of course he wanted his son to know so much that he would be able to hold his own with most men, and he would not even object to his becoming very learned if he liked to take the necessary trouble; but he must have style and finish with his learning. And to obtain these he must go to a university.

And to a university the favourite child was sent; that is, he dwelt within the precincts of one, and while there studied as little as possible. He returned, and Mr. Langridge was well pleased with the change wrought in his son by the expensive ordeal he had passed through. Stephen did not know many things which his father had supposed were taught in colleges, and he was profoundly ignorant of many others which certainly are taught in common schools; but this was not likely to be of much consequence. Few people could tell from his manner whether he knew or did not know all things, such is the advantage of page 88 finish in education. What had been desired was the formation of gentlemanly habits and manners. In this respect Langridge felt sure that his son had not wasted his time. He had formed a great many habits, all of which, it was only reasonable to suppose, were gentlemanly.

Whether he was a gentleman or not, it is quite unnecessary to decide. Five out of every ten persons who, like him, had been foolishly humoured and indulged from babyhood, would have been utterly spoilt, and it was chiefly owing to a certain straightforwardness and simplicity of character that he was not a thoroughly disagreeable fellow. No one thought him that. Strange to say, he was diffident of his merits, and averse to obtruding his opinions upon the notice of others. He was well-mannered enough, and when he pleased could make himself very agreeable. But it was not often that he made any effort for the pleasure of others. Indolence was his bane. It gave him that languid, quiet manner which his father thought so gentlemanly, and through it he had gained the reputation of being excessively good-natured, merely because he found it less fatiguing to agree with people than to oppose them.

Stephen generally breakfasted more than an hour after the rest of the family, and dawdled over most of the morning, reading magazines and newspapers. He read that part of the newspaper which treats of sporting matters with most interest, and had he been page 89 allowed, would have kept racehorses, but this was one point on which his father stood firm. He had often thought how delightful it would be to ride them himself—to take part in some glorious steeplechase, for instance—though he was a remarkably awkward horseman, and would most likely have parted company with his horse before reaching the end of the course. He had a yacht, and it was of great assistance to him in the work of killing time. And when in town he was a kind patron of the opera and the drama; indeed, what with these and what with private entertainments, his evenings were all well occupied, and he felt quite busy.

Lately, however, he had become more energetic. He had risen at the unprecedented hour of six, having fallen into the habit of taking early morning rides with his sisters and a young lady visitor, to please whom he had actually once or twice put himself to considerable inconvenience. His father could only find one explanation for such a remarkable change, and was by no means displeased. The young lady was not only handsome, but rich—a very suitable match for Stephen if he thought of marrying. Langridge inclined to the opinion cherished by a certain Quaker farmer whom most of us have read of: He would on no account advise his son to marry for money; but if he must fix his heart on some one, how much better to contrive that the chosen one should be a well-dowered person.

‘I thought I would come down to see how the page 90 work was getting on,’ said Stephen, leaning against the fence as he spoke. It was one of his habits never to stand upright when he could lean against anything.

‘Swimmingly,’ said Langridge. ‘We'll clear up in this field to-night. I'll get the men to hold on. The other will all be in the stook, and it should be stacked before the week-end; we might have rain any day. I don't like the look of the sky.’

‘Why don't you have one of those new binding machines, and save the expense of hiring Maoris to follow the reaper?’ asked his son.

‘I don't want to spend money in new machinery; it would be a long while before I saved the price of it in wages. They may make what machines they like, farming doesn't pay.’

‘But I thought you had made it pay,’ said Stephen, surprised at this assertion.

‘I?—oh, I've done pretty well,’ said Langridge, rather confusedly; ‘but I've had other strings to my bow. Any half-rocked fellow can make a living out of his farm; but he'd be a wise man who could make a fortune. Well, yours is made for you. Been out with Miss Desmond?’

‘Yes,’ answered Stephen shortly. ‘I say, that is the fellow who was so rude to us. I told you about it. Why, he is one of your men.’

‘Well, what if he is?’ coolly asked Langridge. ‘He isn't rude to me, and he's the best workman of the lot.’

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‘I thought he had a great deal of impudence,’ said Stephen.

‘Don't care what he has if he does his work well,’ said Langridge.

A waggon-load of sheaves came creaking over the stubble, and the farmer walked beside it towards the stacks. From the next field the jubilations of the Maoris announced that the reaping was finished. They were setting up the stooks in long lines. The sun went down in fiery splendour, and the dusky twilight had almost deepened into night before the wheat in the first field was stacked, though the men worked well. Even the independent Simpkins consented to bear a hand to the last, being quickened in spirit by a cold collation of cakes and ale.

At last the starlight showed a bare waste, unmarked by stook or sheave. The tired horses were unyoked, and the men made their way to the great barn, where supper and that variety of couch known as a ‘shake-down’ awaited them. The Maoris had made a fire outside, and were boiling their favourite compound of ‘pipis’ (a kind of shellfish) and flour gruel, well sweetened with brown sugar. Their whares were three miles distant, so they had encamped on the farm. Some shelter from the wind had been obtained by a screen of brushwood, a mere apology for a hut. They were well used to having no other canopy than that one spread above them, blue and beautiful with countless stars.

When all was still about the farm, and all lights page 92 in the house save one were extinguished, a restless figure paced up and down the yard. A long day of active employment had not helped Randall to woo sleep successfully. Now and then he carelessly glanced at the window in which a light burned so late. Suddenly it was opened and a lady with a book in her hand leaned out to gaze at the hushed and lovely night, The watcher below saw her face as the light from a lamp beside her seat fell directly upon it, and turned away with a start.